US lawmakers agree on deal to end shutdown
WASHINGTON: The top Democrat in the US Senate announced on Monday that his party had reached an agreement with the Republicans to reopen the federal government.
Chuck Schumer said that he and Senate majority leader Mitch Mcconnell had reached a deal to end the impasse over immigration issues, and that the shutdown would end.
Under the compromise deal, the government would be funded till February 8 and lawmakers would work until then on a “global agreement” to protect Dreamers — undocumented immigrants brought to the US as children.
If an agreement on Dreamers remained elusive till then, a separate bipartisan legislation would be brought for an up or down vote in the senate, according to the deal announced by both parties.
Earlier on Monday, hundreds of thousands of federal government employees were forced to stay home on Monday as the shutdown entered its third day.
Mitch Mcconnell, the Senate majority leader, said: “Let’s step back from the brink. Let’s stop victimizing the American people and get back to work on their behalf.”
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump continued to blame the Democrats for the shutdown, accusing them of “turning down services and security for citizens in favor of services and security for non-citizens (sic)”.
Trump has also been less than clear on immigration, confounding even his own party — at times, he has been sympathetic to the cause of Dreams, even using the phrase “bill of love” for the issue. However, he has struggled with Republican hardliners in his administration.
Schumer has said he and Trump had agreed to a compromise on Friday, just hours before the shutdown, which would have protected these immigrants from deportation in exchange for concessions, including full funding for Trump’s vaunted wall along the Mexico border. However, Trump reneged on the deal , leading Schumer to say that talking to him was akin to “negotiating with Jell-o”.